Lives of workers changed that day
THE life-changing, devastating and shocking impact a robbery at Clogherhead Post Office has had on the three women who were working in the store that day, was revealed during the court case.
Judge Michael O’Shea heard powerful victim impact statements by the women, including the owner of the Village Stores and the two sisters who worked for her.
One of the sisters said her life had ‘changed forever’ on the day of the robbery, and she hears in her mind the screams of her sister and her boss, crying for help every night. She said it was ‘ not fair’ that this happened to ‘ordinary people who were just working’. In addition, although she had loved working there prior to the robbery, she has now left.
The other woman said the robbery turned her life on its head. She too had to leave and had bouts of feeling down as she had never been so frightened in her whole life. In addition, she revealed that their parents had watched CCTV footage of the crime and ‘no parent should have to see their children in such fear’.
The owner of the post office had been working in the family business for almost 20 years. She said she was stunned when she found out that a woman had been involved in the incident. The owner had to come to work the following day, and she added: ‘I told myself to keep moving, get through the day and I have been doing that every day since and still do’.
The owner said that when she found out that Sarah Doyle had been arrested, she couldn’t believe it as Doyle had been collecting her social welfare from there not only before the incident, but in the days afterwards.
Now, she ‘ trusts no-one’, and she no longer enjoys her job. She remains ‘very cautious and angry’ and takes the registration numbers of strange cars. The owner doesn’t go outside in the dark and now sleeps with a phone in her hand because she is ‘frozen with fear’.